Adrian Tchaikovsky's Blog, page 18

Blowing Someone Else's Trumpet — part 1

Actually that sounds entirely wrong now I think about it.

Anyway, it's that season when we look back on the year with a sense of vague unease and disappointment and then Tezcatlipoca buries us under a mound of flaming jaguars (1).

So: enough of me, but I thought it was would be worth looking at some other books that have struck me this year. Feel free to suggest your own.

Five Remarkable Reads of 2012 (in no particular order)

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett.

Chris is a just starting to become one of the SF authors that everyone is talking about. His other work (Another novel, The Holy Machine, a collection of shorts, The Turing Test, and another collection due out from Newcon shortly) is well worth a look, but Dark Eden was the book I read this year that most affected me, and on two quite separate levels. It's a good old SF book, set on a vividly imagined sunless alien world with an ecosystem derived from geothermal energy (the implications of which are thought through meticulously) and at the same time it's a story about the development, for better but mostly for worse, of human societies. Both sides of the equation are profound and thought-provoking.

Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Paolo shot to fame with The Windup Girl, which would be on this list had I read it this year. He writes about bitter near-future dystopias, often with an emphasis on environmental catastrophe, and recently his target audience has shifted to the "young adult" end of the market, possibly because they're going to be closer to ground zero when all this horribly plausible stuff hits. Drowned Cities is a semi-sequel to his earlier Ship Breakers but treads far darker paths: it's set in the US after flooding and disaster have turned a large area of the States into a humanitarian crisis zone now effectively controlled by feuding militias who rape, murder and pillage at will, and forcibly recruit child soldiers to swell their ranks. It is a bleak, vicious and utterly convincing story.

The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

I came late to this, and heard a great deal of hype about it from a number of sources — not least the "Fantasy Clarkes" panel at Eastercon this year. This was a rare case of the book matching the hype, though. Joe writes some of the most proficient heroic fantasy out there, and his First Law series is justly feted, but The Heroes is a genuinely exceptional novel, the story of a war seen from every level from generals down to foot soldiers, over causes none of the actual protagonists much understands or cares about, and with neither side set up as right or wrong. The characterisation is second to none, the fights brutal and chaotic, bathetic and tragic in equal measure. It is a book about war that is at the same time as far from glorifying the topic (as fantasy is sometimes apt to do) as you can get.

Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

I've been a fan of Frances's work since I read her first novel, Fly-by-Night (also, in the interests of full disclosure, I am a friend of hers, but that shouldn't taint the excellence of her writing). Again, a book written for the young adult market — but it's remarkable to note how much of the truly original fantasy is under that banner these days. Frances is one of a relatively short list of writers of whose sheer prose I am maddeningly envious. She has the same kind of joy with words as Mervyn Peake shows in Gormenghast, and she uses it to produce some truly unique characters and settings. Face Like Glass is perhaps her best yet (and her Twilight Robbery was up against Joe's Heroes in the aforementioned Fantasy Clarkes), the story of a weird subterranean world of people without spontaneous expression, into whose intrigue-laden and Byzantine halls is dropped a girl with the titular face like glass, because her every thought shows on it. It's funny, and it's heart-rending, and it's exceedingly clever.

Last and First Contacts by Stephen Baxter

This is an anthology of short stories in Newcon Press's Imaginings series, all of which have been exceptional collections, but Baxter's in particular struck me. Mostly it struck me with a terrible realization of how fragile everything is — not just life or even Earth, but the universe entire, which Baxter does away with in a variety of ways. Because the man very much knows his stuff, the collection demonstrates why SF can be scarier than anything that actually intends to jump out at you from behind a hedge. It's not the scare of what might happen to you in the dark alley or the shadowy old house, but the utter bleakness of the inevitable, heedless end that will come for all space and time, whether heat death or dissipation. So, you know, not jolly, so to speak.

(1) The whole "Mayan Apocalypse", whilst a sterling example of how people are always far more motivated to build castles in the air when those castles are on fire, is the sort of ludicrous nonsense that should have died a death with Atlantis, Chariots of the Gods and [insert your own political or celebrity joke here]. I'm currently holding a sweekstake for the new doomsday date that this crowd will pick come morning 22nd December, whilst the Mayans and I look on with disbelief (2).

(2) It's a safe bet. If the world does end, it's not as if anyone gets to say "I told you so.

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The evolution of a cover

After the last post, Alan Brooks has pointed me at some of the stages and deviations the Sea Watch cover went through. I'm hoping Alan will perhaps do a guest post on the various stages of the business, as there's a lot I never really guessed at — as a reader you just see the final cover without any idea of the sheer number of possibilities that get tried out and discarded. For example

This is a version of the actual cover where the focus is pulled considerably further out, showing the city of Hermatyre very nicely in the background.

And here, in serious contrast, is what might have been had another idea for the cover figure been taken forwards — meet the Echinoi:

I would encourage you to check out some further iterations on Alan's site, for example, an even freakier Echinoi sketch, a first look at Rosander, and then a another Rosander shot that has a very SF feel to it. As you can see, they make the artist work for his money, and what actually hits the shelves is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

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New Covers!

Firstly, I am proud to present the reissued covers for Scarab Path and Sea Watch courtesy of Alan Brooks:

I'm particularly proud, in a bizarre kind of way, of the Sea Watch one, not because it looks vaguely like me, although that was a weird coincidence, but because I kid myself that I can see there some trace the piece of concept art that I pitched over. I did quite a bit of insect-kinden concept art, much of which will never see the light of day for being what we artists technically refer to as "awful." However, my sketch of Nemoctes came out just about acceptably, and I leave it for you to judge whether it has in some small way been immortalised by Mr Brooks:

No Picture of Che. I cannot draw Che.

What's that?

OK, you twisted my arm. Here's Che, or at least living proof that I can, in fact, not draw her.

Anyway, let's just leave it that it's just as well I'm not trying to make a living doing that, or just one day job to pay the rent might not be enough.

And yes, Nemoctes. Sea Watch is the first (and will probably be the only, as it's still Tynisa planned for an eventual Heirs reissue)  to have a change of cast on the cover, although in all honesty I think Jon Sullivan nailed Rosander so well on the original cover that a new face was probably wise.

Other business: you'll recall Gabriel Brouillard, whose story The Violet Stranger was up on site a short while ago. Gabe is looking to write another, and has thrown down the gauntlet for inspiration. He's looking for some potential new kinden for a story, and has asked for suggestions from the floor. The story synopsis is:

"Story Summary

Time is short for the Flower Mantis-kinden Lynaeus. His master and lover, Illyria, has had her condition worsen and even after the Mantid’s semi-successful venture in Collegium, no cure has been found for the Spider woman’s creeping, fungal sickness. A small sliver of hope appears in the form of a written passage in some obscure, traveler’s journal: an Alethi Scorpion King that has somehow managed to overcome a disease similar in nature and may still live deep within the jungle ruins of Gal Barag. With no further leads a small group of explorers set off in search of this elusive jungle king. The Trio: Lynaeus, the deadly and fanatically loyal Flower Mantis, Savaris, a Spider-kinden doctor and formerly one of Illyria’s medical caregivers, and Tovi, a Fly-kinden jungle guide who’s loyalty belongs only to those with the gold enough to buy it. These three men, traveling deep in unknown territory, must contend with the worst the jungle has to offer in search of the one person who has overcome certain death. The truth behind the man’s survival however, is atrocious beyond imagining and that the prospect that Illyria or her three champions will survive to see another sunrise is more unlikely than even her improbable cure."

So, if anyone has a favourite arthropod yet to be seen in print, now's the time to pipe up.

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Next Big Thing

I appear to have got involved with some sort of devious meme called the Next Big Thing, and have been tagged by the redoubtable Tom Lloyd in his post here. So conjured, I can but obey. And, because I am always on the look out for opportunities to give away snackies, my Next Big Thing what I wrote is going to be, for this purpose, the novel planned to come after the last Shadows of the Apt:

1)     What is the working title of your next book?

I’m going to step beyond the current series, as that’s all planned out, and go for “The Guns of the Dawn”, which (after several others came and went) is the current working title.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

The original title was “The Woman’s War”. It’s about a girl in a fantasy world that’s similar to our 1800, getting drafted into a vicious civil war. That idea kind of sprang full-formed into my head, and it all went off from there.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Heroic fantasy. It’s a war story, it’s about what people and nations do under stress, the good and the bad, plus a bit of romance. Magic and Muskets (and surely that’s an RPG, if not an off the wall regency novel).

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Been watching a lot of Downton Abbey recently, so Michelle Dockery for the lead role of Emily Marshwic. Mark Ruffalo for the sinister bureaucrat Cristan Northaway. Rutger Hauer (or Stellan Skarsgard?) as the enemy leader, the infamous war criminal Doctor Lammegeier. Robert Carlyle as tattooed scout and general lunatic Master Sergeant Mallen.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Jane Austen meets Bernard Cornwell by way of Ursula le Guin. ‘Nuff said.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m very ably represented by Simon Kavanagh of Mic Cheetham & Co, and the book will be published by Tor UK

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About 9 months

8.) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

“Guns of the Dawn” looks at some of the issues of progress and bad government that my series Shadows of the Apt deals with. There is also a lot of the sort of desperate camaraderie that you see in other “backs to the wall” war fantasy – Erikson, Gemmell, Abercrombie.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Did you not get the tagline? Once I had *that* I couldn’t not write it.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

It’s an epic fantasy with a female lead set in an alternate 1800. It’s fierce, it’s gritty, it’s tragic, it’s cynical. It’s different.

I now get to tag some authors who I will mercilessly expose to the whole New Next Big Whatnot or whatever it is I'm doing so: Sophia McDougall, Paul Cornell, Adam Christopher, Rob Shearman, I choose you! (1)

On another note, some short stories to be found in print:

A new adventure for Walther Cohen is Lost Soldiers, which can be found in Spectral Press's Thirteen Ghosts of Christmas.

My Tisamon story, Fallen Heroes, will be appearing in the Newcon Press Sampler available next month from, by weird coincidence, Newcon Press.

Another Shadows of the Apt story from here, Spoils of War will be appearing in the charity anthology Triumph Over Tragedy for the benefit of the victims of Hurricane Sandy, and I think that link also serves as a donations point for the project as well.

Finally, Civilian Reader has an interview up here

Blimey. Busy week.

(1) Anyone taking me up on this is also contractually obliged to leap out of a plastic egg to fight some little dayglo plastic muppet at my discretion.

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Thoughts Bubbled

So: thank you to everyone who came to get books signed at Thought Bubble in Leeds, which put a pleasant debt in Travelling Man's stock if nothing else. Other results of my visit there:

Quest to meet Kate Beaton: failed! By the time my signing spot had ended she was on a panel, and some time later there was basically a queue around the block for her table. However I did stealthily slip her a copy of Empire via her personal Thought Bubble attendants (Bubblies?). If people don't know Hark! A Vagrant!, her webcomic, then I encourage you to go take a look, it's one of my absolute favourites.

Hidden quest to meet, and indeed sit next to, Robert Llewellyn: succeeded! He's a really nice guy and, in addition to being the man behind Kryten's mask(1), he's a novellist and has a new science fiction novel out called News From Gardenia.

The Friday before was, God help me, my shot at a literary soiree for Juliet E. McKenna, up north to talk to local geeking concerns about the Bradford 2013 Eastercon. Had some of the local illuminati over (3), Justina Robson, Janine Ashbless and David Tallerman — the latter of whom is having a trailer made of his book. This is becoming more and more common, although I have no idea where the practice originated. I can see that in an age of digital flashbang, a book in and of itself is hard to advertise — other than the cover art, the magic happens inside the head of the reader, after all. Is this going to be a thing, though? Is every book going to have to come with some sort of front-loaded multimedia firestorm in order to grab attention? I'm not sure there's enough fly-by-wire in the world to film the insect-kinden on a budget… Any enterprising film-makers out there, I wonder…?

(1) That's Kryten from Red Dwarf not the Admirable one (2) or the chap from Farscape.

(2) Although I always assumed (and have now missed my best chance to ask) that the character was probably named after the Admirable, from the context of his first appearance.

(3) Not the actual Illuminati — they don't have a Leeds chapter to my knowledge.

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Signing the Air War: Leeds

So, as mentioned, I will be at Thought Bubble at Leeds, and will be on the Travelling Man stand happy to sign books, some of which will also be there in a buyable condition. Thought Bubble is taking place mostly over the weekend of 17–18 November at the New Dock Casino in Leeds, opposite the Royal Armouries (after all, while you're in the area, right?). I will not in fact be there for the entire duration, as I think it may say somewhere on the publicity. I can guarantee I'll be at the stand from 12–2 on the Saturday, possibly longer. If you can make it, therefore, see you there.

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Junk at the Front

This post bounces off the edits on War Master's Gate (book 9) that I'm currently going through.

When you get this late in a series, the amount of baggage you're inevitably trawling with you becomes quite considerable, despite my best efforts to kill everyone off on a regular basis. Regular readers will have noticed that the amount of stuff shoved into the front of the books has been steadily increasing as the series goes on, to wit:

- a map

- more maps

- a brief synopsis/story so far

- a list of key characters (to compliment the more complete list that has been at the back since book 2) — this new for Air War.

- and now, in book 9, we'll have some quick character sketches of the main protagonists, as a welcome alternative to the synopsis (1).

There is a lot of huffpuffery about this sort of thing sometimes. There are people who thing that a map is a descent into the worst recesses of geekery, and it's true that there is a certain type of fantasy work where the map is less a map as much as a pictographical contents page, where every location (with its neatly delineated culture and geography) is ticked off sequentially until the Land of Evil, where the plot shudders to its deflated denouement (2). The same people who look askance at maps positively have the screaming habdabs about lists of characters, and it's as though a synopsis is somehow making up for a fundamental failure of writing — darling, it should all be clear. Well get eight books into your series and see how streamlined you keep it. Yes, anyway…

My defence, on behalf of the epic fantasist with a multi-volume story to tell, is that these are not crutches for an overburdened narrative, they are tools for the reader. If you, the reader, have just put down The Air War and picked up War Master's Gate the next moment, then you won't need any of that stuff. You have my permission to ignore it and speed on to the first chapter. On the other hand, if you bought Air War when civilized people did, and haven't dawdled overmuch over it, then you're likely to be the best part of a year out of the loop before you pick up the next volume. Whilst I honestly have no real hope that someone could pick up War Master's Gate and get anything out of it without reading the earlier volumes, even a regular reader with the whole series under his/her belt is likely to find that some smaller recurring characters, places or plot developments might have slipped the mind in the intervening time. For you, we have all that crap at the front. Lord knows I need it, when I take up the latest volume of some large series I'm following. The epic fantasy is rich and complex by its very nature, with a large cast and a scale of action all its own. The map is not a shopping list (3) but it is often a welcome reminder of where all these places actually are in relation to one another.

However: that's my take. I'd be interest in any comments, either for or against.

(1) I hate writing synopses. I hate writing that stuff on the back cover, too. Of all the things I have the joyous opportunity to write, those things are chores without redemption. The character sketches, suggested by the Tor editors, were far more interesting.

(2) Diane Wynne-Jones puts it all rather better in her Tough Guide to Fantasyland of course.

(3) q.v. the map of the Spiderlands in Sea Watch where we visit almost none of the places on it.

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Fantasycon: been and gone; and new story

I think I've been a little overconned this year. I count six events, and judging by how spaced I felt on the Friday of Fantasycon that might have been too many. However, once I recovered my equilibrium, it was a good weekend, full of catching up with other writers. Friday, of course, was also the mass signing, and I'd mentioned the utter tumbleweediness of last year's. However this year Marie O'Regan (author and, for her sins, one of the organisers) sidled up to me to explain that, well, there had been a call to publishers for books for the goody bags (1) and Tor had kindly sent over what is known in the trade as a metric crapton of copies of Heirs of the Blade… that (I am informed) the hotel staff had then, with admirably Fawtly-Towers style comic timing, stowed somewhere secluded and not told anyone. Hence the Friday bags had gone out Blade–less, and now we had all these books. This in turn led to MC Tim Lebbon (2) announcing Free Books! at the signing. I tell you, I have never signed so many damn books in one sitting. If it proved nothing else, it's proved you can actually give them away. In the aftermath, there are therefore an awful lot of people holding number 7 of a 10 book series, which will simultaneously (a) probably make very little sense; whilst (b) spoiling the plot of the previous 6.

Late that evening I caught Rob Shearman's reading, and I've said this before, but if you're ever at this sort of thing, and you get the chance, do go hear Rob read. He is a masterful performer, and the most entertaining reader I've ever heard.

I also, some time towards the drunk o'clock end of the evening, got to chat to Juliet McKenna, who gave me some tips on moderating a panel which was lucky because first thing next morning was Hangover Hour, also known as Fantasy: Keeping it Real, my first moderation spot. Thanks to Juliet's advice I managed to get through that relatively creditably, although on the basis that a moderator shouldn't stick their oar in too much, I failed to actually introduce myself at all and had to be reminded. In any event my panel — Juliet, Benedict Jacka, Jasper Kent and guest of honour Brent Weeks — were sufficiently capable that I'm not sure there was actually any need for me at all.

Thanks also for those who came to my late night reading slot (3) thank you very much, and I did get to read a new urban fantasy short story Family Business for the very first time, which seemed to go down well.

Anyway, that's the con circuit done for another year. Next February I pick up again with whatevethehell is now sitting where the SFX Weekender sat, which I think I'm going to as part of Team Tor, but we'll see.

I'd also like to present a new fan-made Shadows of the Apt story, The Violet Stranger by Gabriel Brouillard. Gabriel is a regular commenter on the blog, and has the following introduction for himself:

"Greetings fellow fans, writers, and dreamers,

To those of you who do not know me, I am Gabriel A. Brouillard (not so be mistaken for the Gabriel Brouillard who is responsible for the RPG works known as Colonial Gothic). I am a die-hard fan of the Shadows of the Apt series and have been lucky enough to be gifted the chance of collaborating with Mr. Adrian. This story, I hope, will be but one of many. As for my background, I'll be brief. I am a mentally handicapped, 22 year old, American man. I have lived abroad and studied briefly at the British school DCPS in Singapore. My fondest wishes go to the teachers there who supported me. I hope you enjoy reading this short story as much I enjoyed the writing of it."

(1) Goodie bags? Spelling?

(2) In that he was Master of Ceremonies. It's not his DJ name or anything.

(3) In the original Mitchell & Webb radio show there's a series of sketches where Mitchell plays a very late night radio host at the very end of his stamina, and that was kind of how I felt by then.

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Fantasycon 2012 plus signed books available for order

Just separating out the Fantasycon rigmarole into its own post:

OK, professional hat on first: expanded Fantasycon schedule now reads:

Friday 8pm — Mass author signing. Please come along to this. Last time I swear there were more authors than readers. Stephen Hunt and I sat there like lemons.

Saturday 29th 10-11am — Too Much Reality panel. 10am is also the launch of the Ancient Wonders anthology containing my story "Bones".

Saturday 29th 10.30pm — Reading slot.

Sunday 11.30 — Launch of Hauntings limited signed editions. (This is a cracking ghost story anthology from Newcon Press including my story "Not a Cat Person"

Also, if someone is looking to mail-order a signed copy of The Air War I've just signed, lined and dated a box, and they can be found on Ebay (seller is Blobby20) or at Abe Books.

The "lined" part — and I have no idea how that got to be a thing, but apparently it's a thing — was interested. The first line of Air War seems really innocuous — "Nobody built cities with aviators in mind." And then the plot unfolds, and that little throwaway remark is essentially a particularly grim foreshadowing of all the things that happen throughout the book. It is not a book where cities and aviators particularly see eye to eye, as the cover shows.

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The Last of the Maelstroms

OK, professional hat on first: expanded Fantasycon schedule now reads:

Friday 8pm — Mass author signing. Please come along to this. Last time I swear there were more authors than readers. Stephen Hunt and I sat there like lemons.

Saturday 29th 10-11am — Too Much Reality panel. 10am is also the launch of the Ancient Wonders anthology containing my story "Bones".

Saturday 29th 10.30pm — Reading slot.

Sunday 11.30 — Launch of Hauntings limited signed editions. (This is a cracking ghost story anthology from Newcon Press including my story "Not a Cat Person"

Right. Professional hat off, personal hat on, specifically (1):

Portrait of the Author as an Ageing Fop

I have written a bit about live role-playing before, and this weekend just gone was the very, very last event of Profound Decisions' "Maelstrom" campaign, that has been running for the past 9 years, and which I've been playing since the very first. This was a four-events-a-year extravaganza with around a thousand players (I think) in total, set in a rich and evolving game world that was a wildly original sort of renaissance colonial setting, complete with mind-boggling complex metaphysics, a sort-of working economy with four currencies (of lovely shiny metal coins), a game where most of what happened evolved from player decisions and player action, and a game that lent itself to some very deep, and often dark themes: bigotry, tyranny, the corruption of virtue, all that jazz.

And over now, and it will be missed. I've hung up the floppy blue hat for the last time. Larping, often maligned by those outside the genre, and indeed some inside it, looked down at by Very Serious Re-enactors and ridiculed for its rubber swords, has been an enriching part of my life for years now. It's a boon as an author, because other gaming experiences simply don't have the same level of living detail as Larp — the fireside conversations, the in-setting jokes, the nervous tension standing in a battle line, these are things that you get in books, but not on the tabletop or online. And whilst there are obvious limits to the fantastical side of Larp, the companies whose games I've played — both Profound Decisions and Curious Pastimes — have pushed that envelope a fair way. Imagination does the rest.

So Maelstrom the game has finally drawn to a close: half the invading colonists have naffed off home, the rest are left embattled, crossing swords with the furious natives as the magic that has flooded the world for the last decade slowly ebbs (the alternative being to tear the world open) taking its wonders, its walking statues and its talking trees, back to the mists of legend. For me, I'm happy having finally achieved my character's humble personal goal of transforming into an immortal angel. It's good to have a dream. It's been a good nine years, and I bring a large number of friends and acquaintances from the game that I'd never have met otherwise. Many of them have also bought, and sometimes even read, my books, so there's a definite overlap with self-interest.

What's next? Well happily Matt Pennington and the many talented hands at Profound Decisions are already well into the design of an unrelated successor game, Empire (no black and gold alas!). This promises to be another living fantasy epic, including the titular Empire with a working senate entirely peopled by players, another mad religion with its own synod and assemblies, ritual magic, large-scale battles and hopefully a slightly simpler fictional economy. If Larp is something you might want to get back into, or try for the first time, you could certainly do a lot worse than having a look at the (still under construction) wiki here.

(1) Thanks to Jo Perridge for the photo.

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